Action Alert – Are Your Parental Rights Safe?

Courts are increasingly handing down decisions that take away parental rights — from Massachusetts parent David Parker to the Connecticut parents of Justina Pelletier and Pennsylvania parents Scott and Jodi Ferris, the state has successfully taken away parents’ rights. Usually the state’s victory is temporary, but sometimes it is months before the parents regain full parental rights. In the Pennsylvania case, parents lost custody of their newborn baby overnight because they were asking too many questions of the medical staff at Hershey Medical Center and Justina’s parent lost custody of her for sixteen months!!

In the 2000 case of Troxel v. Granville (530 U.S. 57, 66), the question arose: Are parental rights fundamental rights? While six US Supreme Justices agreed that parental rights are protected under the U.S. Constitution, thus finding for Troxel in the ruling, only four of these – a minority of the high court – held that parental rights are fundamental.